Creative musings in bright colors

Posts tagged ‘dark’

I decided to use a different gold for stamping this time as I have finally run out of my go-to stamping gold (Good as Gold by Essie) and this one does NOT work as well! The image actually picks up, it just won’t transfer because the polish dries so fast that I can’t stamp quickly enough. I need more Essie! I ended up having to hand-paint some of these gold lines, and since my nails were so itty bitty I wasn’t super invested. In retrospect, I am pretty unhappy about that because the manicure ended up quite pretty!

I also finally invested in some MoYou stamping plates (I owned none) when they had their cyber Monday sale….and I have to say I don’t love most of them. The designs are great and the etching is good (on all but one plate), but they are so small! I usually wear my nails longish, and the plates I got just won’t cover my whole nail. Maybe I should have gone with the fewer designs per plate setup, but then only the very center of each image would transfer. Its rather annoying!

Overall, another manicure with a lot of potential and mediocre execution. I also only have two photos because I did these as I came back from winter break and was too busy unpacking to take many nail photos. Also, apparently St Louis does NOT get sun in the winter (I thought Boston was bad, this is worse!) so there are no sunlight photos for this mani…or for a lot of the upcoming ones as well. Sorry!

This is what happens when I come home in a rush from out-of-state and need to be in the hospital the next day but am currently wearing something brightly colored and intricately patterned. Basically, this is just sad.

I usually plan out my manis a little in advance…just in terms of color or inspiration or a specific stamp to use. In this case I had a boring pink that I was going to stamp with white and grey…and decided not to use pink. So I of course grabbed the darkest grey I own. Which was a terrible idea, because my nails looked like Wolverine claws!

I tried to fix that by adding a layer of white-tinted polish with gold flecks in it, but it only ended up looking super uneven. So then I knew I NEEDED a full-coverage stamp, but I couldn’t do black (which would have looked nice) because that is far too dark for the hospital. I settled on a lighter grey. And honestly, its ok but it certainly isn’t good! Yikes.

Sorry this is so drab, I wish I had something prettier to show today. It gets better later next week, I promise! Although, since I am taking an 8-hour long exam tomorrow, grey nails seem fitting :-/. Cya on the other side!

This is going to be a week of my recent favorite manis (stemming back to around January) to celebrate that I am done with clerkships! For the rest of medical school, I do not have to take any class I don’t want to. I also don’t have to take another multiple choice exam (other than the boards, but oh well) until I graduate. This is amazing. So, pretty nail art!

Today’s post is probably my favorite overall out of my recent works. The design was inspired by @i_annylook, who I just discovered and has some really awesome nail art! I need to go try all of it 🙂

I actually really like the concept behind this too…a gradient and then a gradient stamp using one of the same colors from the underlying gradient, but with the stamp interrupted. I don’t have many stamping designs that I think would work well for this, but I’m going to have to go find some!

Also, matting things just makes them better. I think I’d matte approximately 50% of everything I do…except that the design doesn’t last as long with matte top coat! Especially on surgical things where we are required to wash our hands with really harsh chemicals before doing anything. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for more awesome stuff this week 😀

I think green-blue-purple might be my favorite gradient to do. It looks both lovely and mysterious! Unfortunately, the makeup sponge I used to apply this particular gradient was past its prime, and it left me with a bunch of small bumps on my nails. Regardless, I think this came out quite well!

I started this mani with two thin coats of Tilda by Zoya, a very pretty medium-light green! This polish self-levels nicely, but dries about half a shade darker than it looks in the bottle. I am quite happy with this polish. I ended up getting two green cremes from Zoya (Tilda and Jace) and found Tilda to be far superior to Jace (I’ll have to do a comparison after I post the mani with Jace). This polish is even, opaque, and a very nice color.

I went ahead and added the gradient to dark purple, and then a fun geometric stamp to round it out! I think if i had used a lighter blue and purple that this would look more Spring-themed, but honestly I painted it in the winter and I personally just like darker colors.

I’ve started switching up how I take my photos just a little, and am taking bottle shots with most of my manis at this point (since many of the photos that I like best from other nail artists show them holding a bottle of polish, or some other wrap-around prop). I still don’t think I’m quite the best at positioning! Oh well.

It looks like the smoke rising from the embers of fire…but in a Zelda game! Ergo, digital embers. I initially planned this for the Day 2- Orange prompt, but I figured it looked so much like what I had on my other hand at the time (what I used for the Day 1- Red prompt) that I would save it for gradient day. Ta-da!

I’ve been wanting to mix orange and reddish-purple for a while, but it always seemed too dark and sinister for me. This ended up being super cool despite the dark foreboding color combo!

Also, I somewhat love this stamp. I was going to make a stamping decal out of it, but it just works so well here!

I don’t quite know what inspired this manicure. I wanted to use the lilies from my Born Pretty Store sticker sheet, and I figured they would look great over dark blue or green. So I just made a blue-green gradient and added the stickers!

Might I say, I love these stickers? Instant classy nail art! You almost can’t see the gradient unfortunately, but that’s what I get for using two very dark polishes. My tips are green, I promise.

Colors

Blue: Maybelline – Midnight Swim

Green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance

If you want to get yourself some awesome floral stickers (and really, who doesn’t?) you can pick them out from the Born Pretty Store for $4.73. Use my 10% off code for extra savings (LY5X31)!